


Under the Aurora

by Prophetella



Category: TMNT (2007)
Genre: Gen, General fiction, Literature, fan fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-25
Updated: 2014-10-25
Packaged: 2019-06-12 09:47:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15337236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prophetella/pseuds/Prophetella
Summary: A fic based off that moment everyone remembers from the TMNT 2007 movie. Leonardo considering Raphael's place in his family and how best to Lead his fractious brother.





	Under the Aurora

**Author's Note:**

> TMNT 2007 Movie for those who missed it. The opening scene is from a Comic series published pre-movie to ramp up interest... rather annoying how it was supposed to replace backstory. Just search for TMNT if the link pretends not to go through immediately. <https://ffilms.org/tmnt-2007/>

The aurora borealis. He’d heard of it; seen pictures, movies, videos, and even painted images of it. Nevertheless, nothing compared to seeing it in person. Nothing prepared him for trying to watch the sky as it shifted and shimmered. The wisps and streaks of light fading and writhing across the sky in living color, stars dotting the heavens behind it. The beauty of the moment searing into his soul and revealing him, both humbled and shamed him in one breath. Later on, Leonardo thought that this moment of sky watching was the one which convinced him he had yet to prove worthy of leading his brothers. The sheer majesty and expanse of the world laid out bare before him flowing across the stars of the night sky—and he found himself wanting. Lacking. Unfinished. Unprepared. Perhaps the last being the most shameful of the truths of his journey. He _never quite_ felt prepared to lead his bothers again, even as he listened to April O’Neil beg him to come home in very thinly veiled terms. He never felt ready. He only felt required to make an appearance.

As he had walked beneath the crawling lights and faced the tasks of the master he met in the Arctic cold, he often reflected on the scientific fact of the aurora borealis to give him emotional distance from his occasional encounters with the distracting display. The red and green colors created by oxygen high up in the atmosphere being struck by the solar wind-born electrons, the blue and purple streaks from nitrogen being forced to endure the same assaults at lower levels. In his mind, the height and distance of the red color reminded him of the distance between himself and his brother Raphael. Although, Donatello had explained the science of the auroras to him, the slightest red hint in the visual spectrum reminded him of his forceful brother, Raphael.

He had shyly explained the reminder to his teacher and received a story in return. “My mother was rather poorly educated. She invented most of her knowledge and when I went to school, she often learned as much from my books as I did. There was a story of the Northern lights that she told me from childhood. That the lights were the soul of our planet being rubbed raw as it soars through the cosmos, fighting to help bring new life to us every spring and protecting the world and life on it from harm. The explanation from the school upset her until I told her how wise she must have been to know this already. For it is the rough particles driven by the sun itself, trying to invade the Earth, which causes the lights. It is a battle for our very survival and if the magnetic field ever was stripped from the world, it would be a barren rock in no time. My children have heard that story from her very lips.” His teacher had patted his shoulder and left him to contemplate the lights in attempted meditation.

It had taken him a week to meditate after that when the lights finally abated for a few days. Instead of meditation, he had found himself staring at the lights, watching as if they would teach him the secrets of Raphael’s combative soul. His eyes would drift to the sky and he’d watch as if seeing his brother in mortal combat. The colors flowing over and past each other in reminder of days in the dojo watching his brothers train. But, always the red reminded him of Raphael and his unending battle.

When he had finally returned home it came with an empty feeling, no sense that he had earned his place, no sense that he could call his home that again. His brothers welcomed him back, even Raphael verbally acknowledging his return but, it wasn’t until he knocked the helmet off the Nightwatcher that he saw the truth of his most combative brother. His brother had gone vigilante in his absence, changed his form with a suit of armor that barely contained his new feral nature. And so he pushed, finally had to see if his brother would decide to change their fates, irreversibly end his leadership once and for all. He admitted to himself he had been challenging Raphael with his eyes even as the sai struck by his head in the rooftop. Raphael had another sai, a second chance to strike him down and take his place with their family. He had seen the combat in his brother’s soul in that moment, seen the sudden angry betrayal of his long absence slowly sink beneath terror and pain, self-disgust and horror. Regret.

Even before the dart had struck him down in his distraction, he had already forgiven his brother for the quarrel. For while he could see Raphael’s inner battle as if it was painted across the stars above them, he could see the solution that had long eluded him in trying to lead his brother. He knew in that moment when the sky went unwatched that Raphael chose from that moment on to always need him, to allow Leonardo the chance to guide and temper him by their continual challenge. He would be the reason Raphael removed his wall; set aside the suit he ran the rooftops with in the absence of his brothers at his side. In leaving behind the wall he placed between himself and the world, Raphael could once more be forged by the world and grow in ways that he feared. He would stop being a feral, mad, thing, and once more be the heart of fire that fueled his family and warmed them in their struggles to come.

And he would be the leader to wield the forge, to help whittle at his brother’s rough edges, to push and prod them into their best selves. Raphael would always contain battle in his soul. In fact, his soul would always be the one running at the front of their family, determined to command the attention of any danger, to protect them from any foe. Raphael would ever be the weapon, the fierce warrior, the aurora painted across the stars of his family. And Leonardo in turn would take his place as the sun whose very breath stirred the lights that shamed the stars into twinkling.

**Author's Note:**

> For the Under the Stars Contest hosted by the awesome [TMNTContests](https://tmntcontests.deviantart.com)  
>   
> I hated the 2007 movie... it was my least favorite rendition by far. April was a Barbie doll in yellow spandex and Character Conflict is not the same as Drama! I think I have finally gotten over that trauma. Leo would never abandon his family... just no, don't care it's canon- it's wrong!
> 
> But, Leo has always seemed intimidated by his role in the family. He's an uneasy leader in most renditions of TMNT but, he's not really in that alone. He's facing his brother who would rather lead than follow. So, you have one uneasy leader and one uneasy follower... Dramatic conflict ensues!
> 
> I think on the rooftop Leo needed to know if Raphael really would finally usurp his position-- if he would force the age-old law of Cain and Able on them and take the leadership by getting rid of the competition. Good thing he just couldn't do that. But, beyond the aftermath of Walking honking huge statues-- there was a legacy created in that instant between the two brothers-- one left untouched and unmentioned in the Movie.. so I was just polishing things up a little... You're Welcome, TMNT 2k7... I know you needed fixing.
> 
> TBH, The Night Sky Stars just weren't epic enough for me and I finally sat staring at my pathetically weak turtletot entry and minimized it to this Awesome Win 7 Theme of Iceland Auroras and said-- Why was I thinking stars at all! Leo saw the Aurora Borealis when visiting Greenland or Alaska in his Arctic training--- how small he must have felt seeing those lights in the sky. He really is rather easily unnerved and the warring lights of the North would have left an impression. Glad I can share this one.
> 
> I also kinda did 'stars' as a Theme Years ago:: [Breathing Between Stars](https://www.deviantart.com/deviation/193264118) Sci-fi theme, Donnie the genius saving his baby bro, Mikey, and R&L to the rescue!


End file.
